St. George Utah family trip and 1/2 Ironman

So this is a bit late but I guess better late than never!  A few weeks ago we took a little family vacation to Saint George Utah, mainly for David to be able to participate in the 1/2 Ironman event there, but also to have a little family get away considering we may not have a whole lot of time to do anything the rest of the year (I will explain why later). 

So we left on our vacation on April 29, starting things off by traveling down to my parents for a night. Then we drove to Pocatello the next day and spent the night at my sisters and then we finally made it down the St. George on May 1. The traveling down was a bit nerve racking as it snowed bout 6 inches the night before we left and followed us all the way down to Pocatello!

Yep this is what we woke up to. Yuck!

Not such a great start to our vacation. I get really anxious driving in the winter, you think I would be use to it by now but I'm not. And I'm sure you're thinking "it's snowing in April/May?"  Yep!! Only in Alberta!  

Anyway, we made it safe and sound and the weather was a balmy 21 Celsius when we got there. The next day we drove to Zion National Park to spend the day there. It was absolutely beautiful!  The kids did really good too as we forced them to do two hikes with us, the River walk and the Emerald pools (they made it all the way up to the middle pool). David and I will have to go back someday and do the Angels landing hike when we don't have the kiddos with us. 

The beginning of the Riverwalk trail. We had a little picnic lunch here before the hike. 

It was really quite a beautiful walk. The rocks were really cool. 

This is the end and from here you can hike through the river to the opening of another hike called the Narrows. We were planning on doing that too (just to the beginning of the narrows) but after watching some people we realized the water was a bit too deep (up to some adults wastes). So we just hung out and threw some rocks in the river for a bit. 

We are all flexing. Lol!

This is the Emerald pool hike. Here we made it to the lower pool. 

Now the steep hike up to the middle pool. 

We made it. That's the pool behind the kids. 

This was on the way up to the mile long tunnel!  That was pretty cool to, a little claustrophobic, but cool. 

Friday we just hung out at the pool at the hotel, did some shopping, David had to drop off his bike and pick up registration stuff. Then we went out to eat at Cracker Barrel. It was pretty good. The kids enjoyed it because they got to have pancakes. 

Then Saturday May 4, the day of the big race. David left the hotel by 4:00am to catch a bus to the Sand Hollow reservoir, where the swim was. The kids and I slept in and then I helped the kids catch up on some homework (since they were missing a week of school), packed a picnic lunch and then headed down to the finish line area to wait for David to finish. Luckily there was a nice splash pad there for the kids to play in and stay cool while we waited. 

Then he made it!! His time was 6:04. 

YAY DAVID!! He's such an inspiration to me. 

The rest of the day we just relaxed at the pool at the hotel because the next day was the start of our three day journey home. 

K chillin playing some games on his iPod. 

Overall it was a great trip! The kids had fun and were really good, David did great on his triathlon and we had a much needed break from the daily grind. The kids, David and I were happy to come home to spring/summer weather too and not SNOW!  Yay!!!

I just had to throw this one in. My brother and his beautiful little family came out to my parents to see us on our way home. This is my adorable niece!! My other adorable niece was busy playing with my kiddos. 

The boys meditating at grandma A's, getting there mental energy to get back to school.